Why I Love Shooting MFT Cameras

Note from Joe: We have addressed the question of why Mark and I love Micro Four-thirds cameras in one of my Digital Q&A posts but today I leave it to Mark to explain in his own words…

From the Best of Mark Toal

The reason I love shooting with Micro Four-thirds cameras doesn’t have anything to do with sensor size, megapixels, LCD’s, EVF’s or any of the technical specifications that people love to discuss. It’s all about the quality of the image that I get from a camera that I can always have with me.

When I needed to shoot with my Nikon SLR and any one of its expensive lenses, it turned out that I never had it with me if I wasn’t going out to “shoot something.” At a cost of almost $3000 it also never stayed in the car. So most of the time it lived safely inside my closet.

When I bought my first Panasonic Lumix G1 it changed the way that I take photos. Costing $700 including the lens it was always with me or in the car. The smaller size made it easier to grab and take with me wherever I went. Almost overnight my photography style changed and that’s when I started my photo blog that you can visit.

I remember one of the first photos that I took with the Lumix G1 was from the Steel Bridge here in Portland, Oregon. I was driving across and saw the grain ship being loaded. I had to get off the bridge and park about a mile away. I grabbed the lightweight Lumix G1 and walked back to the bridge to take the photo that you see here. I realized that I wouldn’t have had my digital SLR on the seat next to me or wanted to walk a mile each way with it. When I got home and saw the image that‘s when I was sold on the Micro Four-thirds format.

As Joe pointed out in his Digital Q&A post, megapixels and sensor size don’t matter if you miss the photo.

If you have a Lumix GH4, which is one of Joe’s favorite MFT cameras, you might want to pick up a copy of Rocky Nook’s “ The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4″ from Amazon.com or any of the usual suspects.